Overview

Commitments and responsibilities

© UNICEF India

A boy washes his hands and face.

The 10th Five Year Plan of the Government of India acknowledges the huge challenges before the social sector as well as the existing disparities throughout the country.

Its targets and benchmarks to achieve development are more ambitious than the Millennium Development Goals.

Within its national targets, the government aims to improve the demographic indices of the least developed states.

It acknowledges that the human and economic development of the country will depend on eight states, all with a poor human development record, because they constitute almost half of India’s population.

Constitutionally, states can frame their own policy on certain issues, such as education and health, which is why state and district levels are key focuses for UNICEF action.

India’s ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and its signing of the World Fit for Children, all set a powerful framework for committed action by the government and civil society at large.